Dream a Little Dream
By Vickie Moseley
I wrote this a couple of weeks after I first saw
"Colony/Endgame". But recently, watching my nice
commercial free copy of "The Pilot" for the X-Files, I
remembered that this story deals with that episode a lot. So
here you have it. It's the first of three. This one is totally
platonic (non romance). No violence, just some speculation
on how their relationship/friendship was formed.
No third season spoilers.
Standard Disclaimer: CC, you are the MAAAN! You own it
all. I bow to your ownership and ask only that you allow me
the joy of playing with your toys for a few moments. I won't
bend, fold, staple or mutilate them, nor will I reap any
monetary rewards. But Thea Mosley is my name for the
unnamed nurse in the last scene, since you didn't give her
much depth.
Comments are always appreciated.
I'm at vickiemoseley1978@yahoo.com
Dream a Little Dream
By Vickie Moseley
Eisenhower Field Hospital
Dead Horse, Alaska
Dana Scully pushed the door open that led from the
emergency room to the main part of the hospital. She held it
in place as the medics rolled the gurney past toward a room
just down the hall. The figure on the gurney was lying very
still, almost hidden beneath the oxygen mask and the dozen or
so tubes and wires connecting him to the machines that were
being pushed behind the gurney by other medics. Dana
searched the read-outs, hoping that the words she had spoken
just moments before in the ER would not prove to be lies. He
would be all right. She had to believe that. She closed her
eyes for a moment and unconsciously reached up and touched
the small gold cross hanging around her neck. right> she thought.
She glanced at her watch. It was still on DC time. 4:57.
But was that AM or PM? understand.> She headed to the nurses station to ask
directions for the nearest phone. As she picked up the receiver
she dug through the back pocket of her jeans. At least she had
kept the presence of mind to scribble his home number down
on a piece of paper before she left Mulder's apartment. She
dialed the number and held her breath.
A woman's voice answered, sounding rather sleepy. "May
I speak to Director Skinner, please. This is Dana Scully." She
waited and heard the woman call out his name, Walt. It was
the first time Dana had ever considered that the Assistant
Director might actually have a life. She tried to picture him as
a family man, in the backyard next to a barbeque grill, kids in
the background. It didn't quite fit. And it convinced her of
how tired she really was.
"Scully, did they find Mulder? Did you make it in time?"
Skinner asked, breaking into her thoughts.
"Yes, sir, I did. I got here just about 10 minutes after the
navy chopper arrived."
"And what is his condition?" asked the Assistant Director.
Dana heard a good deal more in his tone. He was really
concerned about Mulder. This was weird, after all the shit he
had put Mulder through just months ago. Dana's head began
to swim as she tried to sort out the implications.
"His condition is critical, sir," she finally answered. "He
has been exposed to the same retrovirus that killed Agent
Weiss in New York. The virus was held in check by the cold.
We've done a complete transfusion and will continue to treat
with antiviral medication. Although the hypothermia was a
positive factor at first, it will cause complications in the long
run." She stopped, she was getting too technical. "It's going
to be a long road, sir, but we have every reason to be hopeful."
Was that too personal? she
chided herself. "Sir, I would like to request a leave of absense.
I feel my knowledge of the retrovirus puts me in a position to
be of great service to the physicians here in Alaska. I'd like to
stay with him, if I may."
"Don't worry about it Scully. Just stay there and do what
you can. You can keep track of Mulder's recovery and we'll
call it even. We may run into this 'retrovirus' again before
we're through."
There seemed to be nothing left to say. Except, "Sir, I
want to thank you for all your help. I would never have been
able to get here without. . ."
"Scully, I did what any supervisor should do. I was
protecting my agents. Enough said. Now, go get some rest.
And Scully, good work." He hung up.
Dana replaced the receiver and sighed in relief. She had the
OK to stay. Not that it would have mattered. Even if Skinner
had ordered her back immediately, she would have quit and
stayed anyway. She was just glad that she didn't have to go
that far. She had a new respect for Skinner.
She wandered down the hall until she came to the room
where Mulder was lying. She pushed open the door.
There was a single straightbacked wooden chair in a corner
of the room. She dragged it over and sat down. Her eyes
flicked to the monitors on the other side of the bed. His
vitals were weak, but he was stable.
She listened to the gentle beep, beep, beep of the heart
monitor. His breathing was being controlled by a respirator
and it hissed with each exhale. She shuddered when she
thought how close she had come to losing him. If the doctor
in the ER had been just a little more stubborn. . . match for
vyour own stubborness, Starbuck,> she thought. The
sound of the heart monitor screaming as his heart stopped still
echoed in her ears. The adrenaline rush that pushed her to
such heights to save his life was draining from her body. She
was so tired. She closed her eyes for just a moment, and
drifted off to sleep.
<< shelves surrounded her. The few ceiling lights only had half
the bulbs necessary to light the hall. Saving taxpayers money,
obviously. Her mind was still working on the meeting she had
just attended. It was the first time she had met Director
Blevins and she was a bit taken back. The Director had asked
her to team up with one of the most brilliant minds in the
Bureau, and *spy* on him! She thought that was something
limited to cheap novels and blockbuster movies staring Kevin
Costner, not real life.
But then, she had heard the stories. Special Agent Fox
Mulder was strange. That was the scuttlebutt. And to have an
agent suddenly write his own ticket, basically create his own
division, was evidence of just how strange this character was.
Maybe Blevins was only trying to protect the Bureau from
undue influence from *outside*. Congressmen could get
pretty pushy at times and almost always ended up being a
detriment. Blevins had a right to protect the integrity of the
Bureau, after all.
Most of the doors in the basement were unmarked. She
had counted the doors from the elevator and found the one she
wanted. It was partly open, but she knocked anyway.
"Nobody here but the FBI's most unwanted," came the
response from inside. Just what she
always wanted: her chance to be a real agent, and not just
*teach*, and she pulled this kind of assignment. it, I could
do this! Nobody is going to send me packing without a fight!
She steeled herself, put on her best *killer*
smile and walked through the door.
She had never seen so many
posters with flying saucers. now what the hell does that mean?
she wondered. There were piles of file folders lying everywhere
and she heard a distinct 'crunch' on the floor under her foot.
A quick glance down, and she saw. . .sunflower seeds? Tweety
Bird? Buck up, Starbuck, you can do this, she convinced herself.
She extended her hand. "Agent Mulder, I'm Dana Scully.
I've been assigned to work with you." More killer smile. It
had always worked at Quantico.
He took her hand and eyed her suspiciously. "Well, isn't it
nice to be so highly regarded? And I was under the impression
that you were sent to *spy* on me."
He was prattling on about her credentials. He pulled her thesis
out of a tall pile and held it up for her to see. know what
brand of toothpaste I use? Keep calm, Starbuck.
He doesn't look homicidal, yet.>
The dream continued, like watching a film running fast
forward. It stopped and she recognized the room as the motel
in Oregon, their first case together. The lights went out, and
her computer blinked off. She walked into the bathroom,
intent on taking a shower. When she had removed her
bathrobe, she felt the marks. Three little marks on the small of
her back, just like the ones on the teenagers who had been
killed in the woods. Terror filled her to the core and she ran.
She was standing in front of Mulder's room. It took a
minute to find the courage to knock, or maybe it was fear.
Whatever, he opened the door and let her in. She had to show
him the marks. That was her only thought. At that moment,
he was not a man, a single man, in a motel room. She was not
a single woman in that same motel room wearing little else but
a bathrobe. When she later thought about what she did next,
she almost died of embarrassment. She dropped the robe and
made him look at her back.
He could have done anything. He could have scooped her
in his arms and there would have been no way to fight him off.
But he didn't. He stooped down and looked at the marks by
the light of the candle he held in his hand. When he stood up,
it seemed like an eternity before he spoke. "It's just mosquito
bites, Scully. I got eaten alive out there myself." His eyes
twinkled merrily in the light of his candle but the tone in his
voice was more reassuring than amused. And next she was the
one holding on to him as if for dear life. She had been scared
beyond her wildest imagination and he had been there to catch
her.>>>
Dana's head had fallen forward and jerked her awake. She
looked over at Mulder. His face was burned around the eyes
and nose. Antibiotic oinment glistened on the burns. There
had been some discussion of lightly covering the burns with
guaze, but the final decision had been to leave them
uncovered. It hurt her to look at the burns. She shifted her
gaze and watched the balloon of the respirator fill and empty
with each breath. She jumped a foot when a nurse entered the
room and changed one of the bags hanging from the bar above
his bed. The nurse found a joint in the IV tube and injected a
syringe into it. More antiviral. Dana glanced at her watch and
was shocked when she realized she had been sitting there for
three hours.
"Dr. Scully, there's a spare cot in the lounge. Why don't
you go down and get some sleep?" the nurse said gently.
Dana looked up at her. She was not one of the nurses from
the emergency room. She must be the floor nurse. "What's
your name?" Dana asked.
"Mosely. My name is Thea Mosely. I'm the head nurse on
the floor."
"My name's Dana. I'll be hanging around for a while. It's
nice to meet you," Dana said and offered her hand. Thea took
it and smiled.
"Is he a friend of yours?" Thea asked. Probably the whole
place was already talking about the incident. It was probably
big news, finding a Washington based FBI agent half frozen on
an ice flow in the middle of theArctic. And then, she had been
pretty forceful in the ER, but Mulder's life was on the line,
damn it.
"Yes, he is," she said, in answer to the question. "We're
partners. We work for the FBI in Washington." Might as well
squelch the rumors while she had the chance. She hated
having to deal with the stares and whispers that were part of
the routine in a hospital, military or not.
Thea looked at her and nodded. She started to ask
something else, but thought better of it. Dana could almost
hear the unasked question of the Arctic, *by himself*?> She
was grateful that Thea had the good manners not to ask. Dana
didn't think she could answer it, anyway.
"I think I'll take you up on that offer of sleep. Thanks,
Thea," Dana said as she took one more quick look at Mulder's
unconscious form. Thea caught the look and put her hand on
Dana's shoulder.
"I'll wake you at the first sign of anything. Promise."
*******
Dark. Dark and cold. But the cold couldn't penetrate
the numbness in his body. A sound. No, more of a vibration.
It got louder. A tiny corner of his mind recognized the
sound/vibration, but it couldn't reach out and tell him what it
was. Cold. Dark.
Mulder was standing. All around him was white. But it
was light, not like the total darkness he had walked through on
his way to the submarine. He looked down and he wasn't
wearing the parka. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt.
But he wasn't cold.
There was nothing around him. He started walking.
Maybe he would find something, anything. Maybe Scully was
somewhere near. He thought he could feel her, somewhere
close. He could smell her shampoo, it was herbal or
something. But he couldn't see her.
Then, he was looking down. He saw her. She was arguing
with some guy in scrubs. Poor bastard. He had probably
never encountered a wildcat like Scully when she was mad.
Mulder thought back to the times she had directed that kind of
fury at him and he shuddered. It was a frightening thought,
indeed.
As he watched, he realized that she won the fight. Big
surprise. Mulder wondered how long they had argued. Most
times Scully could *floor* an opponent in under 10 minutes.
They were rushing over to a table with a body laying on it.
Was this some kind of autopsy, he wondered? No. Too many
nurses. Scully never needed nurses to do an autopsy.
There was a man on the table. Mulder thought,
But Mulder couldn't make out the face, it was covered by an
oxygen mask. They were using those paddle things, whatever
they were called. He saw Scully place the paddles on the guy's
chest and say something to the nurses. Everyone stepped back
and the guy's body jerked. A little discussion and she placed
the paddles again. The guy jerked again.
Mulder felt a sudden, sharp pain in his chest. He gasped
for breath. Suddenly he was cold, very cold. He couldn't see.
His eyes were closed and he tried but he couldn't open them.
He heard Scully's voice now, there had been no sound before.
He felt her hand on his forehead, almost a caress. the guy
on the table!
Mulder's mind went black. There was nothing for a long
time. At least, he thought it was a long time. When he
blinked his eyes open he was standing in a hallway. He was
wearing the jeans and tee shirt again. Maybe he had been
mistaken. Maybe he wasn't sick after all. But the feel of
Scully's hand, brushing the hair back, caressing his forehead--
that had been real. It was confusing. Very weird.
He started walking down the hall. He had to find Scully.
She would know what was going on. She'd tell him what they
were doing there, who that guy was, if it had been him. He
knew she was here somewhere. He didn't know how he knew,
he just did. His next thought found him in a room. Scully was
lying on a cot against one wall. She looked so tiny, lying there
under a light green blanket. So tiny and so innocent. Not the
wildcat from earlier. Just a little girl.
He wanted to wake her up. He moved closer and crouched
down, so close that he was just inches from her face. He
touched her shoulder, very lightly. A faint smile played on her
lips. Her eyelids were moving rapidly, she was deep in REM
sleep. He sighed. He didn't have the heart to wake her.
Obviously her dream was a happy one, her face was glowing.
Probably dreaming of some white sandy beach, some guy and
a big bottle of sunblock. He had no doubt that the Scully he
knew would be practical even in the dream world.
He sat cross legged on the floor and watched her sleep.
"How did we get here, Scully?" he whispered, still not wanting
to wake her, but wanting to talk to her nonetheless. "Not
*here*, but where we are, our friendship, our partnership?"
"I remember the first day you walked in that door in the
basement. I knew you were coming. I knew why they sent
you. I even knew about the little *incident* between you and
the head pathologist that led you to Blevins desk in the first
place. I bet you don't even realize what brought you there. I
should tell you sometime. Hell, I might as well tell you now."
"Apparently the Bureau's head pathologist had been
watching you for some time. You were, in the venacular, 'a
gutsy broad', and those kind always get watched, even when
they aren't 'drop dead gorgeous.' Anyway, he had asked your
opinion on an autopsy finding and you disagreed with his
conclusion. He told you that you were full of shit and you
stood in the middle of the cafeteria at Quantico and read him
the riot act. You had all the facts and he was blowing air out
the top of his head. You were just a few seconds from
decking the guy when you realized who you were talking to
and where you were. Of course, you later apologized--for
getting angry in public. But the impression had been made.
Do not, under any circumstances, mess with Dana Scully!"
"Blevins was looking for somebody to spy on me. You
were 'by the book', you took nothing for granted and you
didn't take shit from anybody. So you got the assignment.
And, well, how do I tell you? I hated your guts. You were
jeopardizing my agenda and I wanted to be rid of you as
quickly as I could."
"Then, you were standing there in the office. Oh, I caught
that quick glance around the place. You were horrified!
Admit it, Dana, a big voice inside you probably said 'run, run
for your life!', but you didn't. And you smiled at me. God, I
almost lost it. That smile could melt rock! It was a damn
good thing I was sitting down or I would have collapsed in a
shivering heap on the floor. I had to start talking or I would
have been whimpering and clinging to your legs."
"So I put on my smart ass act. 'Rewriting Einstein, now
that's a credential.' Isn't that what I said? I forgot to tell you
that I got halfway through your thesis and had to go running
to my copy of _A Brief History of Time_ to assure myself that
I had any knowledge of physics at all. Anyway, before I knew
it, I was trying to convince you of the logic of my search. And
you gave me a look that froze my heart. You were going to
be tough. I should have just ditched you and gone to Oregon
alone, but suddenly I wanted very much to convince you of the
reality of my cause. I really wanted you to believe me."
"I gained a lot of respect for you in Oregon. When that
coffin broke open, I thought I was going to toss my cookies
right there on my shoes. I looked over at you and there was
nothing but curiosity in your eyes. Wow! It gave me the
strength to think about more than my stomach. Later, when
we lost time and the power in the car went out and we were
standing on that road and I found the 'x'--. . . I gotta tell you,
Scully. I've heard of grown men go all ablubber over that kind
of experience. But you, you stood there and argued with me!
The rain was hitting us so hard I thought it was going knock
us flat, water was streaming down your face and off your
ponytail and you were arguing with me! I was impressed, but
I still couldn't tell you about it."
We went back to our rooms at the motel and I sat there for
an hour and thought about you. You were such an enigma to
me. You didn't have to argue with me. You had my balls in a
wringer, Scully--all you had to do was write in your report
that I *was* the lunatic the rest of the office thought I was,
and I would have been history. But I sensed in you the desire
to get to the bottom of the case. I sensed a curiosity there that
I had not seen in a long time. Except, maybe when I shave.
Anyway, the lights went out and I figured it was time to try
and sleep anyway."
"You knocked on the door. You were standing in your
bath robe! God, Scully do you have any idea what that does
to a guy? Then, you dropped the robe and I thought 'this is
NOT happening!', and I was right, *it* wasn't happening. But
something even better was happening. Not sex. That would
have been nice, I have to admit, but something else took place
that I have come to treasure more than any 'one night stand'.
Trust. Trust happened, Scully. You trusted me. You were as
naked as I have EVER seen you and you trusted me. I felt like
goddamn Lancelot standing there, holding you as you
shivered. You bring out the best in me, just when the worst in
me is trying to get out."
"I had never told anyone in the Bureau what I told you that
night. I couldn't help myself. The really funny thing about it
is, I guess your trust was contagious. You had trusted me not
to rape you and I trusted you to do the same. Because,
believe me, all you would have had to do was giggle, grin,
laugh, snicker, any sign of amusement at my expense and it
would have been tantamont to rape. But you didn't. You
were lying on the bed and I was sitting on the floor in the dark
and I hadn't felt so safe in years. I didn't even mind that I was
crying. I had no shields left, no walls to hide behind. I didn't
need them, I was with you."
Mulder fell silent. He was feeling very tired. He looked at
Scully's face, still smiling in her dreamstate. He leaned
forward and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Get some rest,
Sleeping Beauty." Everything around him went black.
It had been weeks. The recovery was steady, but so s-l-o-
w. No one had encountered a virus like the one that had
attempted to gain a stronghold in Mulder's body, so treatment
was trial and error. There wasn't much room for error. The
drugs they were using were still in clinical trials and the doses
were way beyond the recommended levels. Every day, Scully
watched his vitals, praying that they would kill the virus before
the drugs or the virus killed him. Tiny little steps at a time,
progress was made. She dared not hope for too much, but
hope was all she had.
He was taken off the respirator and was breathing on his
own. They had removed the feeding tube, on the off chance
that he would be waking up soon and would be able to eat for
himself. But that had been three days ago and the other
doctors were threatening to put the tube back in. Dana was
fighting it. She would never risk his recovery. At the first
indication that he was not progressing on just fluids, she would
agree to the feeding tube. She was secretly hoping that his
stomach growling would be enough to wake him up. Good
grief, they hadn't come this far for her to starve him to death.
But she felt reinserting the tube would only be a step
backward and she did not want to go in that direction. It was
the wrong direction, a slippery slope that ended in a grave. No
way. Not after all of this.
She had been sitting in the cafeteria, eating *lunch*. She
used the word loosely. If hospital food was bad, 'military'
hospital food was the very bottom of the barrel. She was
pretty certain she had ordered a salad, but the brown substance
on the plate was unrecognizable.
Thea came into the room. She glanced around the tables
and spotted Scully, then came directly over to her.
"His EEG is showing activity," she said, without
introduction.
Dana dropped her fork. "Are you sure? It could just be a
glitch," she said. Her heart was screaming at her to shut up,
run down the hall and be with him as he awoke, but she had
been fooled before.
"I watched it for 15 minutes before I came looking for you.
I'm sure, Dana. He's about ready to wake up." She reached
down and pulled Dana to her feet. "You sure don't want to
miss that, now, do you?"
She tried very hard not to run. It didn't work. Thea,
caught up in the moment, was just a step ahead of her. Thea
pushed the door open and let Dana step into the room, then
left. They didn't need an audience. This should be just the
two of them.
Scully sat down and immediately reached out and held his
arm. The burns around his eyes were gone, no scarring, thank
God. Thea must have shaved him and given him a bath. He
looked almost 'GQ', if you didn't look at the blue hospital
gown. His face was turned away from her. She waited.
He coughed. His throat would be raw, from the feeding
tube and the respirator. His voice would be a mess for a
couple of days, his vocal cords had been through their own
special hell. She saw his eyelids flutter.
"Hey," she said. "How are you feeling?" It was all she
could think to say, she was almost in tears. But she managed
the *killer* smile.
He turned and was greeted by that smile. It was the same
one she had on her face that first day, but this time it wasn't
strained. It was genuine. She was Helen of Troy when she
smiled like that. He struggled to swallow. He tried to speak,
but it took some time. Finally, in a raspy voice that she almost
didn't recognize he said "Like I got a bad case of freezer
burn." He couldn't believe that the smile could get brighter,
but it did.
He asked how he had gotten there, and she told him. Then,
all the worry, all the frustration, all the anger that she had kept
bottled up inside slipped to the surface just for an instant.
"Thanks for ditching me," she said. The smile was still
there, but she knew he could sense her emotions.
"I'm sorry about that," he said, still raspy. "But I couldn't
let you risk your life on this."
She had just spent every waking hour for close to a
month keeping him alive and in one sentence he made her mad
enough to kill him herself! she warned herself. he's feeling
better. Change the subject. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"No," he replied his voice sad. Her heart broke as the
words forced their meaning into her mind. "But I found
something I thought I had lost."
She looked at him. Her eyes asked the question she
couldn't trust to her lips. If she spoke now, she would be
sobbing and he didn't need that, not now.
It was almost as if he had read her mind, which, in all
reality he had. "The faith to keep on looking," he replied, out
loud.
They sat in silence, her holding onto his arm. He felt very
safe, very secure, just knowing she was there. He drifted off
to sleep. Once his eyes were closed and she could see his
steady breathing, she finally allowed herself the luxury of her
tears. Silently, she cried, but the tears were sweet and gave
her a calmness she had never known possible.
The end